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I know, I know….I haven’t posted anything recently and I’m sorry. Although, weirdly, I’ve had more email subscriptions in the last few weeks than a Nigerian prince has in a year.

Hmm.

Anyway, not one to complain, I thought I’d share a conversation I literally overheard at work about 10 minutes ago.

The names have been changed to protect the innocent.1

Dumbelina – “Hey, Tarquin! What’s the name of the ramen place we’re going to later?”

Tarquin popped his head up from behind his computer, clearly preoccupied with something he was watching or masturbating to.

“What?”

“The ramen place.”, she continued.

Tarquin stopped for a beat and blinked twice; “What ramen place?”

“The one we’re going to at lunch.”

Tarquin paused again, desperately tring to cling to a conversation he was clearly not understanding.

“What about it?”, he replied, rapidly losing wood.

“What’s the name of it?”

“Oh…”, he said, finally getting a grasp of the conversation, now that he no longer had anything substantial to grasp, “…I think it’s called [insert the name of the ramen place here because I can’t remember it for the life of me!]”

“OK, thanks T-Dog2; I just wanted to have a look at the menu.”

“Uh huh”, he mumbled as he went back to whatever it was he was doing to himself.

There was a brief silence, punctuated only with the tapping of keys and the faint clicking of a mouse button.

“Ah, here it is”, muttered Thumbelina as she found the website.

> click <

Pause

> click <

A longer pause (Jesus, some people surf the internet slower than a sloth wearing a heavy backpack, trekking through deep snow, wearing flippers)

“What the hell is this?”, she half said to herself, but I suspected was intended for those around her (including me) to ask, ‘What’s that?’.

Now having an audience, she attempted to engage me in conversation, “Right?? Octopus balls!”

“Ha, yeah right”, I said wryly as I continued checking Facebook – er, I mean continued working – realising I had a blog post happening right now….live! I smiled to myself as I wondered what she would say next. Would that be it? Would that be the only amusing thing she’d say about the menu from ‘that ramen place’?

Nope.

She continued down the list muttering the occasional ‘Oh’, and ‘Eeuw’ before exclaiming, “Ooh, french fries!”.

Maybe the ramen place is called McDonalds?

“Tarquin, they have french fries! Oh wow, they have french fries with gravy!”

Tarquin didn’t care. He was laid back in his chair, sweating, and smoking a cigarette.3

Last week I was walking behind an American woman who was holding hands with her young daughter and talking to two young French girls. She was asking them about France and how to say certain words in French.

As I got closer I heard:

“So, how do ya’ll say ‘Camden‘ in French?”

There was a pause as the two girls looked at each other bemused, and then turned slowly back to the woman.

One of them replied:

“Er, Camden eez ze name of a market in London, no?”

Woman “Uh huh” said the woman, not getting it; “So how do y’all say it in French?”

There was another pause as the French girl tried to decipher if there was something she missed, or a meaning she hadn’t considered…or if it was simply a stupid fucking question.

Finally she looked back at the woman and gave the only answer she possibly could.

Like this:

I haven’t really put pen to paper – or fingers to keyboard – recently and this is due to two simple factors:

I have recently started a new job at the company I work for and have therefore been preoccupied with not fucking it up.

I procrastinate more than (note – come back and add example here)

This isn’t to say I haven’t been making notes of life events; I have. It’s just a case of sitting my arse down and actually writing something.

The irony is, I actually started drafting this post…got sidetracked…and in the meantime posted something else entirely. Well, now I’ve decided to sit down and at least attempt to finish this entry.

To manage your expectations, this isn’t a big amusing moment in my life, but more of a mini-rant about a gripe that I never realised was a gripe until it began rearing its ugly gripey head.

And this isn’t the only gripe. To be honest, there are a few small issues here in America that I simply wasn’t prepared for. For example, America doesn’t seem to have a word for ‘peckish’.

I’m sorry….what?

I used it in a sentence the other day at work and was met with lot of blank faces.

No word for peckish? Really?

That evening I went home and asked my wife if there was an American word for ‘peckish’ and all she could come up with was ‘a little bit hungry?’. This astounds me in a nation that is known for being in a constant state of graze.

Saying ‘I could eat’ isn’t quite the same.

Also, another unexpected gripe is the fact that most people I’ve met can’t read the 24hr clock (or ‘Military Time’ as they call it here). I’ve lost track of the amount of times I’ve seen them deducting 12 on their fingers and quitely mouthing the words.

Admittedly I do remember struggling with this myself, when I was SEVEN.

Anyway, back to the case in point.

I speak to a lot of Americans on a daily basis at work and, more often than not, I need to take their email address. This isn’t anything out of the unusual, except for the way they read out their email address. It simply baffles me.

Me – “What’s your email address?”

Them – “D as in Dog, A as in Apple, V as in, erm, Van, E as in Everyday, S as in Sam, M as in, erm, Mary, I as in Insulin, T as in Tommy, H as in Happy”

Small pause.

Me – Sorry, you said that so quickly, so it was D for Delta, A for Alpha…”

Them – “No, A like Apple”.

Me – “What’s the diff….er, I mean, can you repeat it for me?”

Them – “D as in Dog, A as in Ask, V as in Vanessa, E as in Egg, S as in Sam, M as in Mary, I as in, erm, (Inbred? Idiot? Imbecile?) Illinois, T as in Tree, H as in Hello”

(Usually always completely different words from the first attempt).

Another pause.

Me – “So, ‘DaveSmith’ then?”

Them – “Yes”

Me – “Ok….?”

There usually follows an unnecessary pause while the customer assumes I magically know their email domain name.

Me – “And the rest of it?”

Them – “What?”

Me – “Davesmith…..at?

Longer pause whilst they try and understand that I’m not a fucking mind reader.

Them – “@gmail”

You’ll notice the lack of “.com”. In the US, if they don’t say ‘.org’ or ‘.net’, then it’s an assumed ‘.com’.

This has caused me no end of problems when I give out my email as I still use my ‘.co.uk’ address. This usually takes some explaining and is met with a blank, open mouthed stare.

Drool optional.

So this is my issue, why don’t the majority of Americans actually say their email as it’s written? I could understand if it’s something like 15t8f725d54it4@blah.com, but it rarely is.

It’s usually something that can be read out like ‘davesmith’, ‘rockdude’ or something laughably awkward like ‘sexxychick’ or ‘hotmama’.

These last two are particularly interesting when you can hear little kids in the background.

Seriously love, have a different email address when you’re shopping; your poor husband must hate calling on your behalf and being asked for it.

At least I understand why HE prefers to spell it out rather than say it.

I was talking to my wife about this and she said a customer had given her “K for Knife”. What next; ‘P for Pneumonia’ or ‘J for Juan’?

Sometimes I try and help them out and they disagree with my suggestion.

Them – “P as in, erm…P as in….”

Me – “P for Peter?”

Them – “No, P as in….erm, Psalm!”

F as in Facepalm

You may have noticed, from the examples I’ve given, there appears to be no grasp of the phonetic alphabet here; at least the official one.

How do I know this? Because it confuses the shit out of them when I use it.

Admittedly, I have spoken to a few people who have used the phonetic alphabet correctly and I’ve openly commended them for it. It’s a nice refreshing change from the random selection of words I’ve heard.

Mind you, there are a few unofficial phonetics that seem to have become the standard, even thought they’re not.

I’m currently at work and I’ve just been to make myself a mug of coffee.

Here’s what happened.

I poured the coffee, added sweetener (I try and avoid sugar from a health point of view, despite the fact that sweetener is nothing but chemicals…but hey, less calories right?), and opened the fridge to get a carton of milk.

One of my colleagues was pouring herself a coffee, saw me add the milk to my coffee and said “How very British”.

I looked at my coffee confused for a moment, then at her, then back to my coffee. What’s very British? Coffee? Er, I think you’ll find that’s a very American thing.

Then she placed her cup under one of these bad boys…

…and starting pumping her beverage with Hazelnut…erm…’cream’? Is it cream?

(Shrugs) Who knows?

I smiled at her as she pumped 6 doses of this stuff into her coffee and said “I used to use that until I saw the calorie content. That’s why I went back to using milk”

She looked at me blankly for a moment. I couldn’t tell if she was trying to comprehend what I’d said or if she was recuperating from having to count all the way up to 6.

She eventually replied with “And you guys put milk in your tea, right?” as she curled up her nose in disgust.

“Yes we do. Actually it’s only you guys who don’t”, I said, a little defensively.

There was a pause.

“Yeah”.

She had clearly lost her way in this conversation and went back to stirring her mug of Hazelnut ‘cream’ with a bit of coffee in it.

As I walked away I turned back, smiled, and said, “Tea with milk is epic”.

Living in America I should really say ‘my wife is sick’, but I can’t use that sentence without wanting to add ‘and twisted’ on the end.

So….my wife is ill.

Very ill actually.

She has spent most of the day – and last night – coughing, sneezing, throwing up and sporting a high temperature. What’s even worse is the fact I had to cancel our 6:20pm showing of Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

It’s such an emotional time.

Unfortunately I couldn’t cancel the tickets online with the same ease I booked them, so I had to put on outside clothing and drive to the cinema.

Sorry, ‘Movie Theatre’.

Sorry, ‘Movie Theater‘

(rolls eyes)

After a 35 minute drive I arrived at the cinema and headed into the noisy, bustling foyer. I navigated the slow, shuffling popcorn munching morons and made a beeline for the box office desk.

The young girl behind the (bulletproof?) glass called me over and I pushed my pre-printed ticket under the glass towards her.

“I need to cancel these tickets; my wife is sick (and twisted) and so we can’t make the 6:30 showing”.

She smiled, took my tickets and proceeded to scan stuff and type things on her tiny little keyboard.

After a few seconds she said, “So I have to ask, where are you from?”

Did you have to ask?

“From Vegas, born and bred” I replied, with a smile.

She looked at me blankly, an emotion came across her face (ooer!) which I can only describe as bemusement. No, wait….confusion; the word is confusion.

I decided to help her out.

“Just kidding, I’m originally from the UK”.

She smiled (out of relief mostly) and what followed were the usual questions of “How do you like it here?” and “How is it different from the UK?” etc.

After a minute or so of “I don’t miss the clouds and rain” and “Well, the TV over here sucks” she smiled again at me and slipped me my refund receipt.

Before I could thank her and leave, she hit me with this one…

“Let me ask you one more question; since you’ve been here what stereotype of Americans have you found not to be true?”

Wow, this was an interesting one. Where do I start?

Actually, where DO I start? I couldn’t think of a single stereotype off the top of my head and here I had this young girl smiling at me, expecting an answer…..an honest answer.

Naturally.

So I went with the most common stereotype; the one that is synonymous with Americans, known the world over.

“Well, there’s the stereotype that Americans are stupid…” I began.

Her face dropped.

The foyer fell silent.

I felt like that out of town stranger who had walked into a saloon in the Old West. Even the popcorn had stopped mid-pop.

She looked mortified and started spouting some bollocks about the revolutionary war and the fact that it was actually the English fighting the English or something. I tuned out to be honest.

Hey, she asked the question. Be prepared for the answer. Well, half the answer in this case.

Before I could say that I found that stereotype to be (mostly) untrue, she looked behind me and said “Next please”.

Oh dear. Touch a nerve did I?

As I got in my car I smiled to myself as I nearly said, ‘Americans are very easily offended’.

Cunt.

See?

Wait, she DID ask for an American stereotype that I had found notto be true…right?